Joining a sorority or fraternity during college will benefit you in numerous ways even after you’ve graduated. Many are grateful for the lifelong friends and exclusive network their sorority or fraternity helped create. Read on to find out how a sorority or fraternity is also a built-in family for many members.
Michelle Arnau
Michelle Arnau, CEO of Rowan for Dogs.
Love, Support, and Encouragement
You absolutely can consider a sorority or fraternity a form of family. To me, family is much more than just blood relations to specific people. Precious concepts such as experiences, bonds, memories, love, admiration, and respect can be forged with anyone given the right circumstances. In the case of sororities and fraternities, these relationships are inspired by a connection and commitment to societies driven by loyalty and comradery.
Environments like these pave the way to build worthwhile, and oftentimes life-long relationships with like-minded people. Furthermore, this special connection with a select group of people bonds you to a brotherhood/sisterhood that supports you well after you first pledge.
Love, support, and encouragement are highly representative of the very nature of what society associates with families. So yes, a sorority or fraternity that fulfills these sensations for an individual can indeed consider one a family.
A Sorority or Fraternity Can Bring a Sense of Belonging
Sororities and fraternities tend to have a high community focus and offer a communal environment that emphasizes the members’ sense of belonging. In this way, I think sororities/fraternities can be a form of family. Living in the same house and pursuing the same goals as each other can bring a sense of unity and family.
Family Away From Home
You absolutely can consider a sorority/fraternity a form of family, and I think that a lot of members do. They are commonly referred to as sisterhoods and brotherhoods, so that alone alludes to the idea of family. For many college students who leave home, they are (sometimes unknowingly) on a search for a new “family.”
Whether or not they have a close relationship with their actual family at home, students want to have a group of people at college who they can feel comfortable with and spend time with. Sororities and fraternities can help students find these friends by initiating friendships and introducing students of similar interests to one another.
Joining is a Lifetime Commitment
When you join a fraternity or a sorority, you're joining that organization for life. Because of this, it can be considered to be somewhat of a family. You can always give back to your fraternity, helping to mentor younger members as they graduate and enter the business world. Through ties to your fraternity, you can form a network that can serve you throughout your career, as well. Fraternities can open the door to many opportunities throughout life.
Sororities and Fraternities are Inclusive and Function Like a Family
Many people find genuine friendships within their respective [Greek] communities, [which] are open to diverse populations. Sorority and fraternity members strive to create sustainable change in themselves while empowering the next generation of leaders. Members of a Greek family take on projects that improve society.
Nick Mueller
Nick Mueller, Director of Operations of HawaiianIslands.com.
Members Are Always Ready to Help
Family is meant to be those you are closest with. You can share your honest feelings, thoughts, and opinions [with family,] and you will always be welcomed with open arms. They are always there for you no matter what, and you are always there for them. Many people don’t have this with their actual blood relatives, or they simply don’t have their family nearby while away at college. So, they find it elsewhere. They can certainly find it with a sorority or fraternity.
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